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Books

Here are some of my boys' all-time favorite books. They are arranged roughly from more recent books suitable for older kids (age 4) at the top and younger kids as the list goes on.

*small-space living/budget tip: Borrow books from the library. As much as I'd love to buy all the books in the world for my boys, we live in a small space and on a budget, but just down the street from the library. We make a haul from the library each week and renew the books we love online for as many times as possible. Our library system is huge and it is easy to request books from other locations. We've learned that the checkout limit at our library is 42 books at one time on one card!

This is a delightful, artistic book, full of things to look at. The backgrounds are collages of photographs from Paris and the characters are illustrations in the foreground. The boys liked looking at the pictures and in the back is a crepes recipe that we tried and loved.

Super cool and informative book about Apollo 11. Allow plenty of time for this breakdown of the mission. The boys love it and have it to thank for being able to randomly astound people with their space knowledge.

The art in this book is fantastic and the content is also fascinating. Now we know how to grow potatoes...which I should have known all my life being from Idaho, but...I didn't. There's one weird page that doesn't seem to belong in the story. See if you can find it.

This book was a gift from the boys aunt, uncle, and three imaginative cousins. It's cute, the paintings are amazing, and it is full of facts to read(that may or may not be interesting, based on time of day and level of energy of the parent reader).

This is the original If You Give a___ a ___ series, and by far the best one. The story comes full circle and is cute. If You Give a Moose a Muffin and the other follow-up books aren't as clever. The boys love to finish the sentences on the pages.

We've been living next to a construction site for a year now and so all this equipment is familiar to my boys. The rhyme is cute and the illustrations are too. It's even educational if you're like me and didn't know the names of some of the machinery.

Bear Has a Story to Tell by Philip C. Stead
Calvin especially loves this book because we met the author and illustrator (they're married and live in a barn in somewhere like Michigan!) at the National Book Festival last year. The paintings are beautiful and the story is simple and sweet about a forgetful bear.

This is an old-ish book; it has nothing flashy about like many newer books. The pages fold out and the kids get to guess which animal is which by looking at one eye of the animal and some written hints. The boys can't get enough of it. They now know what a bobcat is. The last page is has all the animals hidden on it.

This is a weird book. I was waiting for a clever ending, but there isn't one. The boys love the paintings and the sing-song repetition. It helped them learn the days of the week. Cal pretends to paint the pictures while we read.

If I had a nickel for every time my boys want to reenact being the Gruffalo and the mouse I'd be rich. The boys were about two and a half before they liked this book, but since then it has been a huge hit. Clever mouse! There's even a movie that is awesome and perfectly true to the book.

This is one of the boys' newest faves. This series of books (The Cat in the Hat Knows a Lot About That) are from scripts of the actual PBS show. This one about traveling into a beehive and helping them make honey is particularly entertaining to the boys. The rhyming isn't forced, which is a relief, and the rhythmic sounds are make the facts about nature easier to remember.

I'm not sure if the boys are "supposed to," since they are boys, but they love this book. Their favorite part is when Madeline says, "pooh pooh" to the lion in the zoo. Naturally, they like to say "poop, poop" instead. The pictures in here are so great.

The boys have loved this book since they were little. They love to swing and this picture book with only one word leaves room for a lot of imagination. With the help of Daddy, the boys named the little girl Pickle and the alien Gerbert.

This is an anthology of a bunch of Golden Book farm stories. My parents gave it to the boys for their second birthday. It is beautifully illustrated and I remember many of the stories from when I was growing up.

I got this book to try to ease the boys' fear of getting into the pool. It didn't, but they still like the story, especially Tuck's pet spider Snyder.

Even Firefighters Hug Their Moms by Christine Kole MacLean
This was introduced to us by our friend Rob. I love it because of the imaginative play it shows. The boys love it because on one page the kids in the story are pretending that their ceiling fan is a helicopter's blades.

I picked this up at the library while doing a quick, I'm-in-a-hurry-but-the-boys-need-new-books-so-I'll-grab-random-ones-off-the-shelves walk-through the other day. I didn't notice until I got home that it's by Amy Krouse Rosenthal, whose big-person books I love. What a great idea for a kids' story! Kids love to pretend and at least mine love to boss others around. It's cute. I try to focus the boys' attention on the part where the little girl carefully washes her mommy's feet in the tub. Maybe someday they can give me pedicures.

At first I thought this would be too long for two year-olds, but its rhyme and cadence are catchy and the boys love the melancholy frog pictures. It's by an Idaho author my parents met this summer who signed it for the boys, which makes it a special addition the bookshelves.

This book from my Aunt Jane (not the author Jane, just the book-giver Jane) about a near toad-al road disaster has ended up keeping my boys on the sidewalk better, lest they become like Hoptoad but worse.

I got this at the library to help ease Cal into the whole wearing glasses concept. It's a cute and rhyme-y and about animals wearing glasses. I like to think that it helped him with the transition...

Meeow and the Little Chairs by Sebastien Braun
We recently discovered this other Meow book at the library, which resulted in both boys excitedly sitting down in little chairs, at the same little table in the library kids' reading room while I read it to them. Twice. There aren't a lot of things they'll sit for at the library with all its stimulation, particularly the murals in the kids' room. We love clever
Meow.

This book captured my boys' interest from the time they were just a few months old. The sounds are great. The cover is all ripped off our copy and there are teeth marks all over it-- signs of a good book.

Maisy Goes to the Hospital by Lucy Cousins
I got this after Clark had to go to the emergency room for stitches on his chin. They love the tragedy of the broken leg but the redeeming recovery of their favorite mouse at the end. It also includes balloons, which is always a plus.

This must have been where Calvin first learned similes. He has been a fluent fountain of rich similes from the moment he could speak. This is a fun book that not only introduces figurative language, it highlights how one person can be and feel differently at different times.

This is a matching book that the boys have loved for a long time. Even before they understood the concept of matching the pictures in the boxes to the pictures in the scenes, they loved to find and point to all the colorful images. The also recognize the characters from Baby Einstein movies.

This was my gift to Calvin, the best hugger ever, on his first Valentine's Day. It is creative and adorable and the boys have loved it for a long time.

The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle
There is a story within a story here, and Carle's illustrations are charming as always. The last page has flashing lights, which is about the best thing in the world for toddlers.

This classic is a classic for a reason. Finding the mouse on every page is also a great treasure hunt. I thought for a long time that there was a page without the mouse, but one day Clark found it! What a kid!

This is one of my favorite fun reads. It's easy to pick up and put down for all of you who have a lot of distractions in your lives. The first time I read it on the bus and it was ideal for that type of reading. I am charmed and entertained by Amy KR's creativity. Read it!

As a Tina Fey fan and an avid 30 Rock viewer I loved this book. It's a quick read and I admit I shed some laughing tears over some of her stories...or did I wet my pants? Something like that. What a funny lady.

This is the sequel to the young adult novel Stargirl. I read it while one of my tutoring students read it for her summer reading book this summer. Such a fun, sweet read, both books. Beautiful, refreshing, charming...

Everyone was reading this so I started it too. It took me awhile to get into it, but I was soon sucked in. I loved the mystery in it. I hadn't read a mystery for a long time. We went to the movie when it came out and enjoyed it, minus the graphic sex stuff. I started reading the second book in the trilogy but about a third of the way through I decided I'm over it. Moving on.

I live in the lovely Reston, Virginia, outside Washington, DC in a cozy two bedroom, two bathroom condo with my husband, twin six year-old boys, and a two year-old boy. It's a tight squeeze! I'm from Idaho. I like to write. I love a good strong backrub at the end of the day. Let me tell you a story.